Recycling, Compost & Waste

Going “green” with compostable products has been a goal for the UW’s Housing and Food Services (HFS) for two years now.

The compostable Coca-Cola soft drink ecotainer, unveiled in front of spectators in the Husky Den yesterday morning, is another part of the goal. It is being labeled the final piece in the HFS line of environmentally friendly utensils and food containers that have been widely publicized during the past year. A biodegradable lid is still being developed.

A bus running on vegetable oil was parked near By George Café last week as part of the national BioTour, and a bluegrass band performed on top of the bus by plugging their amps into its solar panels.

The UW chapter of the Washington Student Public Interest Research Group (WashPIRG) booked the bus for a tour stop and invited the student band Old Technology to play a concert on top of it. Though WashPIRG members were a majority of the audience, the curiosity turned more than a few heads and attracted Tukwila School District students who were touring the campus.

If saving trees isn't enough to get you to stop using plastic bags, the fact that there is a toxic plastic gathering — twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean — should probably do the trick. This isn't just about saving the environment. This is about saving ourselves.

Students in the residence halls are struggling to eat their food. The chief culprits in this dilemma are the compostable, corn-based cutlery now being used by Housing and Food Services (HFS) as part of a composting and recycling program.

The new cutlery was implemented this year as part of the larger composting program instituted last February. HFS ultimately hopes to achieve a "zero waste target" through this program.

"Last year, we bought over 3,000,000 forks, knives and spoons, and they all went to a landfill," said Michael Meyering, HFS project manager.

The UW Custodial Services is kicking the bucket and replacing it with a new program called Green Cleaning, intended to reduce the UW's impact on the environment.

The UW Custodial Services and environmental groups such as Students Expressing Environmental Dedication (SEED) are working to make the University community a more environmentally friendly place not only in the dorms, but also on campus as a whole.

Recycling locations:

1. Bloedel Hall, second floor

2. Anderson Hall, main floor

3. Winkenwerder Hall, main floor

4. HUB main hallway

5. University Facilities Building, lower floor

6. Gerberding Hall, basement level

7. CSE - Allen Center main floor

A great deal of food is thrown away everyday and the UW is taking an active stance to improve a global problem starting with the residence halls.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton marked 25 percent as the amount of the U.S. food supply that is wasted daily, reported stopthehunger.com, an informational Web site regarding hunger.

This quarter, SEED has developed the Lander Compost Pilot Project, a new experiment in effect in Lander Hall that hopes to make composting an accessible source of recycling in residence halls.

Earth Fair

When: 10:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Where: HUB lawn

Earth Day is April 22.

The day of action was started in 1970, a time when, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, "rivers caught fire and cities were hidden under dense clouds of smoke." Twenty million people celebrated the first Earth Day, with numbers growing ever since. To get involved, check out these Web sites:

Federal Way's Calvary Lutheran Church is going green — not for St. Patrick's Day, but for Lent. Though the congregation's sacrifice is a new twist on an old tradition, churchgoers are certainly embodying the spirit of this Christian remembrance in a way relevant to the 21st century.

The spirit of Lent is to reexamine one's way of living and identify how a change can be made on either the individual or societal level.

The King County Solid Waste Division wants everyone to see recycling in a whole new light.

The county is sponsoring "Project Driveway" — a traveling exhibit of 23 recycling bins, including one made by the UW. Other participants include Woodland Park Zoo, the Seahawks, Harley-Davidson and Starbucks.